Why Strategy Matters More Than Ever
The holiday season; from Black Friday through to Christmas and Boxing Day, aren’t the time of year to randomly discount and implement reactionary strategies. For many eCommerce brands, Q4 is the most profitable time of the year, or at least it has the potential to be.
However what brands often fail to realise is that this will only be your most profitable time of year if you prepare strategically in advance (3-4 months in advance to be specific).
While customers are more willing to spend during the holiday season, we can’t forget that:
- Competition is at its peak
- Ad costs are rising
- Consumer expectations shift
All of this to say, the brands who succeed during the holiday sales season aren’t just those who discount everything last minute for the sake of it.
So if you genuinely want to thrive in Q4, and make it your most profitable quarter, your approach needs to be more than just random or reactionary discounts.
Let’s dive into our initial tips on how to begin your preparations for the fast approaching holiday season.
First Things First: Focus on Your Customer Journey
Something we always practice and make known to our clients is the importance of the customer journey; it’s also one of the most overlooked elements of the holiday season!
Most customers need around 8 touchpoints to convert, because they need to know, like and trust your brand in order to want to purchase from you (especially above your competitors).
They need to move through a series of touchpoints through the stages of the marketing funnel shown below before they can make a purchase decision. Now is the time to move potential customers through those first initial stages of the journey; particularly awareness, finability and reputation, in order to get them through to convert and become brand advocates.
Ensure you nail your customer journey, and keep this front of mind as you move through the following steps, as those steps won’t be nearly as effective unless you have a well-thought out, effective customer journey to move potential customers through to converted customers and loyal advocates.
Define Your Brand’s Objectives and Success Metrics
Before you do anything, it’s essential to know what success actually looks like, and this will vary, since not every brand will have the same goals over the holiday season.
- Decide on the Priority: For some it may be maximising revenue, for others it may be about clearing excess inventory, or acquiring new customers which you can nurture into long-term buyers.
- Set the Right KPIs: Once you’re clear on the goals, you can start defining the measurable targets you want to achieve. These could be revenue goals, ROAS, average order value, percentage of new versus returning customers.
- Measuring Success: Establish your attribution model to understand which touchpoints are most effective at driving conversions, decide on your reporting cadence and dashboards, so that you have a clear way of tracking and analysing your performance.
Follow Up With Forecast and Demand Planning
You never want your performance to be based on guesswork, you want it to be based on data, which is exactly what is needed going into the holiday season.
Analyse last year’s performance: How can you know how to improve if you don’t have insights about last year’s performance…past surface level information? We recommend looking into:
- Top-Performing Products: Which products drove the highest revenue and which ones underperformed?
- Channel Performance: Which channels delivered the best return? Look at all your channels which may include Meta, Google, Email, paid partnerships or UGC, etc.
- Campaign Analysis: Which creatives resonated with your customers, and which seemed to fall flat?
Reviewing results isn’t enough, you need to actually analyse what the data is telling you, and learn from it. For example, was a product a bestseller or did it just benefit from receiving a huge proportion of ad spend? Did that campaign succeed because of the timing, or was it that the creative hit the right audience?
Forecasting: Following your analysis of previous performance, the next step should be forecasting, which will allow you to make informed decisions when it comes to strategic actions such as:
- Budget allocation
- Channel mix strategy
- Custom journey planning.
Budget Allocation and Media Planning
While the specific periods of Black Friday, the lead up to Christmas, and then Boxing Day, are the biggest events, neglecting the months leading up to this season is a huge mistake many brands make.
- Ad Spend: Plan out your ad spend across the months leading up to the big events; ad spend of September-December should be mapped out, accounting for the rising costs during most competitive months.
- Reward your Loyal Customers: Offer your VIP customers, email subscribers or SMS lists early access or exclusive deals.
- Create Nurture Sequences: Ensure you have your email flows built out in advance. This will allow you to have well thought out messaging and sequences, and help avoid rushing to get out EDMs at the same time every other brand is fighting for room in customer inboxes.
Your database is gold and can really strengthen and push your campaigns, but if you wait until November to utilise it, you’re missing out on nurturing customers to purchase during sale season.
Creative & Campaign Asset Development
It’s no secret that competition is at its highest during Q4, and as a result consumers frequently hit a point of ad fatigue during this holiday season amongst the bombardment of promotions and ads.
With that being said, there are ways to cut through and be the brand that consumers remember prior to the ad fatigue.
- Start early (yes, we sound like a broken record at this point): Start creating your ad creatives, videos, EDMs, and landing pages well in advance.
- Plan Rotations of the Creatives: This will ensure you’re able to keep ads fresh while combatting fatigue.
- Maintain Consistency: Ensure you maintain consistency across your campaigns. Specifically, be consistent in your brand messaging and values. Your campaigns aren’t simply about discounting and being competitive; they’re about reinforcing trust, your values and brand story.
People buy from brands they trust and believe in. If your campaigns, messaging and ads can reinforce that, you’ll cut through the noise and ad fatigue.
Final Thoughts
The fast approaching holiday season can serve as a huge revenue generator, which means it deserves planning and strategic intention for the months leading into it.
Rather than random discounting or reactionary campaigns based on what your competitors do, begin early this year.
Start defining your goals with the holiday season, analyse past performance and forecast this year’s demand. Ensure you map out your budget, nail your offers, build out your database, and create campaigns that truly stand out.
At Omni Online, in the lead up to the holiday season, we’ve started building out strategies and mapping out our activities over the next few months for our clients.
If you want this holiday season to be record breaking, this is the time to start. Download our Holiday Season Checklist to ensure you’re on track to making this holiday season and Q4 your strongest one yet!
